Global School House
Global School House
Topic: Project based learning (including International Cyberfair)
Source/Author:
Global School Net / International Cyberfair
Intended Purpose:
Global School House organizes, implements, and sponsors numerous PBL activities. My favorite is Cyberfair. Global School house also has a project registry on their web site that teachers can use to post projects if they are looking for partners and also search for existing projects they can join.
Intended Audience:Cyberfair participants have been from Grades 1 – 12.
Many successful projects have been done in 1 computer classrooms. But Internet Access is necessary for uploading your project and for participating in Peer Review.
Abstract:
If you like holistic interdisciplinary thematic units, then you will love Cyberfair. Having participated in CyberFair with my high school students for almost 10 years, I can tell you that younger students usually ‘beat’ out the older students in the competitive part of this project based learning activity.
GSN words capture it well
“International Schools CyberFair is an award-winning, authentic learning program used by schools and youth organizations around the world. Youth conduct research and publish their findings on the Web. Recognition is given to the best projects in each of eight categories: local leaders, businesses, community organizations, historical landmarks, environment, music, art, and local specialties. This White House endorsed program encourages youth to become community ambassadors by working collaboratively and using technology to share what they have learned. Students evaluate each other's projects by using a unique online evaluation tool.
CyberFair activities are designed to support 21st century learning skills and global literacy standards. CyberFair encourages youth to connect the knowledge they learn in school to real world applications.”
Using Cyberfair as a structure, provides students with an authentic experience that teaches every level of Project Based Learning (from planning to production). The fact that students from over 70 different countries compete also provides a sense of the impact of globalization and the type of skills students will need to compete globally in a “flat world”. I would suggest clicking on the Cyberfair icon and reading over the ‘At a Glance Section” and clicking on some recent winners from different grade levels or different countries. GSN provides a structure that will allow creative teachers to take almost any discipline or interdisciplinary approach and turn it into a CyberFair project. Our most successful project LifeOnTheBorder worked well because it took 300 students from the World Langauge Department and teamed them with Technical Center Students to research the Franco American Culture in our community and create a website of our finding. It is NOT a web design contest. It’s all about uniting a community of learners around project based learning. But don’t take my word for it… listen to the kids themselves talk about their experience
Even if you never enter a project in CYBERFAIR, the sites created by students are rich with content and can provide examples of project based learning projects you can do “to scale” in your own classroom.
